Christmas Day

As I mentioned at the end of our Christmas letter we stayed home for the holidays for the first time ever this year. Luckily Steph's sister Meg was able to come down from Sacramento for the day (and the night before), so we did have some family around. Still, it was a pretty low-key Christmas. Partly because Evan didn't have any idea what was going on and partly because we wanted to stick to his normal nap schedule we didn't even start opening presents until around lunchtime -- I'm pretty sure that never would have happened in my house growing up!

Evan is not a baby in need of very much, so it was a bit of a challenge coming up with gift ideas to recommend to Santa. I don't remember if we mentioned it or not, but he (Santa) evidently knew that his (Evan's) shoe closet was a little sparse so he (Santa) got him (Evan) a stylish new pair of shoes from REI. Here he (Evan, not Santa) is modeling them:

As you can see in that picture and the next one Evan, in true baby style, was more impressed with the packaging (in this case, his stocking) than with the actual gift. At least Meg liked what Santa got her.

Here he and I are on the couch after all the presents have been opened (it couldn't have taken more than 15 minutes... like I said, low-key). Evan is playing with his new Fill & Spill Fishbowl, which I think is his favorite acquisition from the holiday:

Loopy Bear

My mom made Evan a teddy bear that we call Loopy Bear (you'll see why in the video) which he is quite fond of. He really likes their interactive play sessions, which mostly entail him shrieking at the bear and yanking on its scarf in delight. This video shows what I mean:

Those sounds in the background are the sounds my cell phone makes when I play with the settings of its video camera feature. Evan seemed quite impressed by them. I now often find myself adjusting the zoom and brightness of the camera for no apparent reason.

Christmas Letter

Because we've been maintaining this blog we didn't really feel the need (or obligation?) to write a Christmas letter this year - instead we just sent a photo card. I figured I'd go ahead and write a quick "year in review" kind of post for anyone who hasn't been reading along for the last 6 months, and that will serve as our letter to the masses. So, here we go...

We started 2007 with Steph 3 months pregnant, and each of our parents moving out of town as fast and as far as they could. Steph's parents moved to San Diego at the end of last year (more on that below), and in January my parents packed most of their house into a self-storage unit and moved to New York City. My dad started his new job as the V.P. of Finance and Administration at The City College of New York in February, so they'll be Manhattanites for the next several years, probably until he retires. For the spring semester they lived in a studio apartment on campus, but in May they bought a co-op in Washington Heights (at the far north end of the island). They've also kept their house in Hayward (renting it to a small family), with the plan being to return to California when they retire. In the meantime they're enjoying being New Yorkers.

When we moved into our house in the summer of last year we chose to make the family room, which the previous owners added on, into our master bedroom, and the previous master bedroom into Steph's studio. Since the family room also had an attached bathroom and it was bigger than a bread box this worked out pretty well. There were two things our new bedroom did not have, though: 1) any significant closet space (since it wasn't built to be a bedroom); and 2) a door. We struggled for nearly a year to come up with an idea for how to enclose the room and add closets without making it into a monstrous job and without losing some of the features of the existing room that we were very happy with, like the skylights and the extra kitchen storage space it provided. In April we finally came up with a plan to convert the family room to a fully-functioning bedroom, and hired a contractor to do the work. After a few weeks his part of the job was done (we painted and installed new cabinets in the kitchen extension area ourselves, so parts of that project are still ongoing), and we had ourselves a honest-to-goodness master bedroom.

Part of the reason we wanted to finish remodeling our house's new addition as quickly as possible is that we considered it to be part of our preparations for our family's new addition. Evan James Metz arrived right on schedule on June 16th, and it goes without saying that our lives have not been the same since. Of course you already know about that, seeing as how you're reading this blog.

Along with a new baby came a flood of visitors: my parents, Steph's parents, Steph's sisters Meg (who's close enough to visit often), Melissa, and Kim, and that's just the immediate family.

Both of my sisters got engaged, and they're both getting married in 2008. My youngest sister, Hilary, is marrying Brian Palmeiro (they actually got engaged last year I think, but for some reason it feels like it was just early this year to me) in Puerto Rico in February. The middle sister, Hallie, is marrying Mark Connell at Chouinard Winery in Castro Valley, CA in September. I tried to convince her that they should tie the knot on the 14th (Steph's and my anniversary) instead of the 13th to maintain symmetry (Hallie and I have the same birthday, only 2 years apart), but she wouldn't go for it.

In September we spent a long weekend in Palm Springs for the last Goetsch family gathering before Jim & Sheilagh retired and sailed away into the sunset. This was also Evan's first chance to meet his cousins Delaney, Riley, and Paige, which he greatly enjoyed.

Speaking of Jim & Sheilagh retiring, for those who don't know, Steph's parents retired to a 42' sailboat! They sold their house in Auburn and bought a condo in San Diego last year, and at the end of October they headed out for points south as part of the Baja Ha-Ha, a flotilla of like-minded cruisers who sail from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. The plan is to sail around the tropics for the foreseeable future (they're just north of Puerto Vallarta as of this writing), so we're not sure when we'll see them again, at least in person. We talk with them via video phone through Skype every few weeks, and they're maintaining their own blog to keep all their family and friends apprised of their adventures. They're both pretty good writers (anyone on the Goetsch Christmas card list will undoubtedly remember the inspired canine-penned letter of '02), and they're having some intriguing experiences, so if you're at all interested I highly recommend checking out their blog.

For Thanksgiving we made our annual trek eastward, although this year we were headed to Columbus, OH instead of Detroit, MI. We stayed there for 3 days with all the extended family on my dad's side, and then drove with my parents to New York to stay with them for another week.

And now, for the first time since Steph and I met... heck, for the first time since either of us called home someplace other than where our parents lived... we're spending the holidays at home with our little family. It's been quite a year.

Pampers Stages Review

A month or two ago I was contacted by an online marketing company that works with Pampers to see if I'd be interested in reviewing some of their diapers. Evidently someone thinks I have some sway as a taste-maker in the dealing-with-poop crowd... I'm not sure where they got that idea. Participating in this project involved getting a free package of diapers and wipes, though, which was enough for me to sign up. Besides, they're the same diapers we would be using anyway, so what did we have to lose?

When our free diapers arrived I was a little surprised to find they were Pampers Baby Dry, not Cruisers -- the review program was focused on the Pampers Stages product line, and I don't think Baby Dry diapers are technically in that group. Besides the cartoon characters on the outside I can't really tell the different models apart, though, so pretty much all of my review applies to either.

First, the good. They work... all the time. We went through the whole jumbo pack without a single leak, which is pretty normal for us for the last several months. And they seem very comfy. I haven't worn them myself, but they look like they fit well and we've never had any chafing problems or anything like that. When he wears them Evan stays dry and happy... I don't know how much more I can say.

Now, the bad. Really, there isn't any bad, we'll just say the less than good. As I mentioned before, the only difference we could discern between the two diaper models is the patterns on the outside. The reason this is remarkable is because the Baby Dry diapers have little yellow spots in the design, and one of those spots always falls along the leg gathers where it looks like poop that has started to escape. It's just annoying that every time you change the diaper you think you're on the verge of an accident. Also, the wipes don't feel very substantial, and we often had to use three or four of them in a single change if things got at all messy (which things are want to do when you're dealing with diapers). Maybe a super soft wipe is important for some babies, but Evan has a pretty durable bottom so we like something with a little more heft and commensurate cleaning power.

My final grade for Pampers Stages? I'll give Pampers Baby Dry an "A", and Pampers Cruisers an "A+". As I've said before, you can't go wrong with Pampers.

Future Farmers of America

Evan really likes animal sounds, particularly frogs, cows, and chickens. Or at least, he likes it when people imitate these sounds -- I don't believe he has heard an actual frog, cow, or chicken yet. Here he is reacting to Steph making chicken sounds:

As soon as he hears the real thing I'll report back.

Baby Heffner

Sometimes either before or after the morning dog walk Evan likes to kick back and relax a bit:

As you can see, Evan is a big fan of the idea of the leisure suit, if not the actual form of one.

Solid Food

We started Evan on "solid" food today -- rice cereal mixed with breast milk at first, and later with mushed up carrots added in as well. It is a rather drastic understatement to say that he liked it. Most of these mealtimes his countenance alternates between hungry baby bird intensity:

and "Where have you guys been keeping this stuff all my life?" ecstasy:

This video shows what I'm talking about, at least his baby bird impression:

We Are Family

Since we took a new family portrait for our Christmas cards, I thought it might be interesting to compile all the pictures we've used (or in some cases, could have used) for the main picture on our website.

First, here's a picture of Steph and I from 2000. Someone (I think her sister Melissa) commented that these looked like engagement photos, although we'd been dating less than a year at the time... maybe she knew something:

This was the first picture we used on the front page of our website. I think Peekay was only a couple of months old at the time:

This was our family portrait on the website until today when I finally replaced it with a picture of the whole family. We're sailing in San Diego Bay on Steph's parents' boat last Christmas:

This is obviously the picture of us about to leave the hospital with our brand new bundle of joy. I considered making this the website image, but none of us find it phenomenally flattering, and I love the picture of us on the boat so I just stuck with it for a while longer:


This is the picture we took with my parents on one of their visits with the express purpose of replacing the website family portrait. I don't know how many times we had people over to the house or brought the camera with us places thinking "This will be the time we ask someone to take a nice picture of our little family" and then forgot about it. Then we finally remembered at a restaurant before taking my parents to the airport, and I never got around to actually putting it on the website:

And finally, here's the picture we included in our Christmas card, which is the new public face of the Metzes:

I think it's the best one yet.

Christmas Flip Book

For our Christmas gifts to our immediate family this year we had flip books made of a short video of Evan and Peekay hanging out together. You may not get to see the actual flip book, but I can show you the video it was based on:

In case you're interested, the music in the background is a version of "O Holy Night" that appeared on the Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Christmas episode, performed by a small brass band from New Orleans. The music doesn't really go with the video very well, but as soon as I heard it this particular rendition became my favorite holiday song. It was also the only Christmas song I had on my computer.

Tower of Babel

I'm sure you all remember those stackable ring tower baby toys, right? Evan got one as a hand-me-down from a friend of a friend, and it usually works to keep him occupied for at least a few minutes at a time. He doesn't necessarily play with it exactly the way it was intended to be played with, though. Oh sure, he can take the rings off the tower, and sometimes he can put them back on, but that's so conventional. What he really likes to do is take a couple of rings and smack them against each other:

Obviously the dog it not sure what to make of this behavior, but I'm pretty sure she understands the spirit of whacking things around just for the fun of it.

Also, notice how well Evan is sitting up on his own, and holding stuff in his hands. In just the last few weeks he's made significant progress in both of these areas.

All Good Things...

Even though Evan's sleeping, or more accurately his lack thereof, drove us nuts during our whole trip back East, we still had a pretty great time. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, though, so Saturday morning we packed up our things (including a few more than we started our trip with, of course) and headed back to California. My mom especially seemed sad at our departure (I think she really likes being a Grandma), so I took one last photo with my cell phone to send to her:

We had a rather taxing trip home -- as if a planned 2 hour layover wasn't bad enough, we ended up being stuck in Chicago for 6 hours due to the weather, the last hour and a half of that sitting on the plane waiting to be cleared for departure. At least the flight was relatively empty, so we were able to bring along Evan's car seat and have a whole row to ourselves. And maybe as a bit of compensation for being kind of a pill during much of the trip, Evan was pretty much perfect during the journey home. He even slept the whole flight from Chicago to Oakland!